Speech by SPEL on marine pollution

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Following is the speech by the Secretary for Planning, Environment and Lands, Mr Bowen Leung, during the second International Conference on Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology at the City University of Hong Kong today (Thursday):

Professor Wu, Professor Chang, ladies and gentlemen,

I welcome all those who are visiting us to Hong Kong and I welcome all of you to this, the second International Conference on Marine Pollution and Ecotoxicology. It is a most timely event. Timely because 1998 is the International Year of the Ocean. Timely because the virulent red tides that affected Hong Kong and other parts of Southern China this year have focused attention on the threat that marine pollution and toxic materials in the oceans presents to us.

"It is a curious situation" - wrote Rachel Carson, author of 'Silent Spring' - "that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself". That's a rather dramatic way of putting it, but sometimes we need drama to help us face up to hard truths, and the truth is that the sea is a major part of our life support system, not a sink into which we can endlessly pour our waste without heed of consequences.

That is a truth which it is relatively easy for Hong Kong to comprehend. This is a city built by the sea, making its living across the sea's highways. It would be hard to ignore what the sea is telling us, and indeed we have been listening and taking action. Over the past few years we have :

* enacted the Dumping at Sea Ordinance to prevent damage to the marine environment by dumping of waste in local waters;

* brought all of our coastal waters under the comprehensive pollution controls provided by the Water Pollution Control Ordinance;

* extended controls over livestock waste disposal to cover the whole territory, significantly improving river water quality;

* following on from proposals made at the first of these conferences in 1995, we have reviewed the categorisation of marine sediments and established guidelines for dealing with them during reclamation and development so that impacts on marine life are considered, not just chemical effects;

* we have also been building our strategic sewage disposal infrastructure. Already 25 per cent of the domestic sewage that used to discharge untreated into Victoria Harbour is being treated by the system and by 2000 the number of people being served by modern sewage treatment systems will rise from two million to four million; and

* we have strengthened our strategic environmental assessment and planning processes and have enacted and brought into effect on Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance, to ensure that all significant development plans and projects are subjected to a comprehensive environmental impact assessment process before we commit ourselves to them.

The work of enforcing legislation, building better environmental protection infrastructure and planning better to prevent pollution will continue unabated. While we have seen significant improvements in river quality and steady improvements in beach water conditions, marine water quality in Victoria Harbour has continued to deteriorate; entrophication remains a serious problem and pollution of local waters by toxic substances, especially trace organics, has become a cause of increasing environmental and human health concern.

Building up knowledge about these issues and about techniques for assessing the risks in order to establish control policies is a key part of the work we are now doing. I particularly welcome this conference for providing a forum to strengthen our knowledge base and help us to review options for further work and future initiatives.

Sometimes we will have to act in advance of establishing scientifically based standards and policies - as we have done with our recent decision to introduce full disinfection of treated sewage flows into the North Lantau channel waters, a precaution that we believe is necessary and sensible to take in order to protect the White Dolphin population from water-born pathogens. However, further research into the micro biological quality of offshore waters and the threat that pathogens in sewage may pose to marine life is very much needed to guide our environmental impact assessment process, to help our planning of new infrastructure and for review of legislation and water quality objectives. Similarly, study on trace toxic materials, on the routes through which they are entering the marine environment and potential measures for their control is going to be of great help to improving our policies and pollution control programmes in future.

But this international conference is not concerned solely with our local issues. Indeed, it helps to remind us that our local problems are just part of a much wider global issue. The health of our oceans matters to everybody. It matters for our food supply. It matters for our own health. It matters for our ability to enjoy the world which we have been given to live in.

Here in Hong Kong we are working ever more closely with both academic and government counterparts in Guangdong to study the problems in the Pearl River Delta Region as a whole, and to plan for sounder, more effective environmental management. This is the proper focus for our work, but we must not forget that we are just one component in the coastal system ringing the South China Sea. Exchanges of information and understanding about the issues that the whole region needs to address together in order to protect this common resource remains an important perspective for us. So does sharing our experience with the community of international scholars and practitioners in marine pollution prevention, so as to increase our capacity to respond effectively to the challenge of maintaining a healthy, life supporting marine environment.

Pressures from population, industrialisation, poverty, ignorance and misguided assumptions will continue to put great stress on the marine environment and on policy makers and planners, but we have a duty to ourselves, to our successors, and to the communities we serve, not to be daunted by these challenges. We know from our experience that it is possible to turn back the tide of degradation. By building up knowledge through research; by strengthening co-operation through conferences such as this; by building better infrastructure through steady investment; and by developing sound regulation, sure enforcement and efficient institutions, we can work together effectively to sustain the capacity of the sea to sustain our cities and their peoples.

I began by saying that this conference was timely. In recent times men have done great damage to the sea, and to its capacity to support us. To help strengthen resolve and inspire action to make good that damage, we need to try to recapture some of the poetic imagination of former years, when the ceaseless sound of the sea was once described as "Time's self made audible", and we need to ask ourselves whether we want the crashing waves of a ruined sea to be ticking off our own time, or whether we will act to ensure that a healthy sea holds out the promise of sustainance to us and to our successors. I know the answer I have chosen, and I am grateful to all of you who share that purpose to protect our oceans. I look forward to your advice. I welcome the deepening of our understanding and strengthening of our capacity to act effectively that comes through these conferences, and I wish all of you a most stimulating and fruitful time together.

Thank you.

End/Thursday, June 11, 1998

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